Not contesting your point about where to build, but the stadiums I’m familiar with get used for lots of other things beyond the one pro sports team.
A car would have substantially less utility for me if I couldn’t park it at my place of residence. Its main use is hauling product from Costco and making quick evening/weekend trips to places that are just a few miles away but not on public transit. If I had to wait 20 minutes for a train just to get to my car, I’d probably say “screw it.”
I posted this a while back in the Affordable Housing thread
The proposal to allow small apt buildings near rail stations was rejected.
Doesn’t Costco do delivery?
This thread almost reads like you don’t pay property taxes in the US?
We pay pretty decent property taxes. It’s split out the the region, the local municipality, and schools. The municipality generates a number each year. That’s multiplied by your property value. Then farms pay .25 of that number, residential 1 time, and commercial 2 times iirc.
You know this for the sports team owners’ benefit, right?
Costco delivery costs more than driving every time.
The delivery option has a different set of inventory/availability, so it’s occasionally useful. But I prefer to peruse the freshly cut steak, check out the floor models and special deals, try some free samples, then take everything home and be able to start using it immediately.
I did all that catching the train to/from Sunset Park Costco in Brooklyn with a couple of granny carts and when I got home I could use my purchases immediately. Anything big I would have them deliver. I was OK having to wait a few extra hours before I could start using the bigger items.
Not if your factoring in the minimum $4K per annum cost of owning a car and the higher house price for having a garage.
The national average for paying extra for a house with a garage is $23K (2020 prices) and I guess it would be much more than that if you are close to a rail station (if other countries are a guide). I bet you could limit those deliveries to once or twice a month and take transit for smaller pickups in the meantime.
Not really true for trains. And while busses are easier to re-route, they do utilize roads that you seem pretty opposed to.
I mean, sure you can stop running the train. But after spending a boatload on building the track that’s not really a good plan.
If Californians run out of water they can stop growing almonds and have plenty. You will have a few very unhappy almond farmers (and it would be sporting of the state to help them do something else) but as I’ve mentioned before: almond trees don’t vote and thirsty people do. There will be a lot more thirsty people than angry almond farmers voting.
Good luck with that. They have a lot of advantages over us.
This has come up a couple times. I can only assume those positing this sentiment have never actually commuted by rail. If they had, they would know it to be absolutely true, trains win 100% of the time.
Why? Because of express routes, mostly. During peak hours, AM and PM routes have more trains running and they serve fewer stations per train. So, when I board at Grand Central headed to Scarsdale, normally the 10th station from GCT, it is actually the first stop. We travel at 45mph, non stop, to the destination. If you think the bus is going to do the same, then you will have to have new Bus Only lanes so they do not stop at lights or traffic. Or road repair. Or accidents. Or big puddles.
Additionally, it is more reliable than driving. We in the Midwest often joked that Chicago had 2 seasons: winter and Road Repair. I’ll bet you can relate to that.
When I commuted into wall str, from either NJ, CT, or NY, I could predict my arrival time at the office within 2 minutes. The trains were on schedules and very rarely deviated. Walking is utterly predictable. Inclement weather may add 30 seconds to a 10 minute walk. It’s obvious once you do it, but I can see how it’s hard to visualize if you haven’t lived it. If you are driving to work, then I’m guessing you factor the unknowns into your departure time. You arrive in a 15 minute window of target. Same on the return trip. Probably factor in weather as well. Heavy rain, add 10 minutes. Snow, add 15.
Now toss in the ability to add or subtract a car to the train at peak times. Can you even do that on roads? Do buses now hitch up trailing buses? I haven’t seen that myself. But I see the semis do that, so I could be wrong on that.
Buses are very flexible for in-city transit. Easy to change routes. Easy to add more buses to the fleet. So compared to transit by personal vehicles, I agree they are more flexible. City planners love them. I understand why and agree. But I thought this discussion was about road expansions and where to invest city moneys. We are trying to choose between adding trains or adding lanes. Not really relevant in that regard.
So in the end trains are both faster and more reliable modes of transit than roads, directly attributable to their flexibility. Until you institute “bus only roads” with no traffic signals, they will always lose.
This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the post that you are responding to. I am confused why you are arguing these points.
By the way, I have commuted by train quite a bit. I was a daily train commuter in two different cities and a walker but frequent user of trains in a 3rd city.
Comfortable using the trains as a tourist in… gosh… at least 4 other cities that I can think of off the top of my head. So yes, I’m very familiar. No clue why you think I’m not.
Oh, was also a daily bus commuter for maybe a little under a year but it was a pretty bad experience so I quit and started driving.
What did you find “not really true” in the post I responded to? Let’s start there.
My complaint was “not really relevant”. Perhaps a quick rehash of the exchange is in order.
You said that mass transit can be easily discontinued if they are no longer popular routes.
I said that’s not really true for trains as you’ve incurred the (massive) expense of laying the track.
Then you started talking about express trains as if that somehow refuted the point that train tracks are not easily discontinued.
Agree with this sentiment. The idea that millions of people are going to leave California because of climate change is ludicrous. You might see some migration northward as temps increase, but the water issues can be addressed by using it more wisely.
And, there’s a long history of people using water wisely right?
I don’t think it’s that far-fetched. Something similar has already happened in recent history. 2.5 million people left the Great Plains between 1935 and 1940 because of climate change (the Dust Bowl). Many of them are probably ancestors of present-day Californians.